girl

The word “girl” means a female child. In plain terms, a female child or young woman, or informally, one's girlfriend or daughter.

“Girl” is pronounced GURL (/ˈɡɜɹl/ in IPA).

Here is “girl” used in a sentence: “The girl skipped happily down the street.”

Words with a similar meaning to “girl” include babe, bint, bird, cake, chick and colleen.

The opposite of “girl” — its antonyms — are woman and boy.

“Girl” is a noun.

The word “girl” comes from Middle English. From Middle English gerle/girle, once used for a child of either sex, of uncertain deeper origin.

“Girl” is a very common word in modern English, usually learned at around the A1 level.

The difference is age and maturity. A girl is a female child, roughly from birth through the teenage years. A woman is an adult female, generally from around eighteen onward. As a girl grows up, she becomes a woman. In casual speech "girl" is sometimes used for adult women, though many prefer "woman."

There is no single fixed point, but the change is usually tied to reaching adulthood, commonly around eighteen, the typical age of legal majority. Puberty, which happens earlier, marks physical maturing but not adulthood itself. So the shift from girl to woman is gradual, and different cultures and contexts draw the line differently.